


everything you think you know is wrong

by zombierump



Series: remember where you want to go [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Transphobia, ftm!Blaine, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-21
Updated: 2011-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombierump/pseuds/zombierump
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Blaine looks in the mirror, he doesn't see himself. He sees a girl. He hates that. </p>
            </blockquote>





	everything you think you know is wrong

**Author's Note:**

> This is an ftm!Blaine fic. I've been looking through some of the trans* Klaine posts (fic and art) and figured I would try my hand at it. This was pretty hard to write and it brought up a lot of my own insecurities (and more), but it feels good to have finished this. It's over 4,000 words long and pretty angsty so it's a hefty read that may require tissues.

  
  
Sometimes Blaine would pull his hair back, turn his face this way and that, hoping to look different, hoping to look like himself. He never did, never, and that made him frustrated. It made him want to cry, to beat his fists against the mirror. He wanted to tear apart the bathroom, his room, himself. He wanted to curl up under the sheets and just cry.

He wanted to look like who he was.

There were days when Blaine wouldn’t look in the mirror at all and, if he happened to catch an accidental glance, he would pretend that the person there wasn’t him. He didn’t have those breasts, those hips, those thighs; he was a boy after all. It was easier those days; it was easier to breathe and to believe. 

  


There were other days where he would stare into the mirror for hours. Blaine would stare until he couldn’t stand the sight of himself. He would run his hands over his body, always clothed, and press at the things that made him not him. He would press and press until those parts ached and he knew there would be small bruises; until he felt they had been properly punished for lumping on  _his_  body. 

  


When he went to school, Blaine dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He tried to pitch his voice low, tried to walk without a swing to his hips, tried to be himself, but there was always a teacher calling him that horrible name, always someone yelling out at him in the hallway, always someone jostling him up against the locker as if they could terrorize him into being something he wasn’t. Blaine would try to stay small after that, try to stay invisible, try to stay safe.

  


When he went home, he changed into the pretty dresses his mother had bought and his father approved of. He put small clips in his hair to hold back the curls instead of the gel he regularly used and talked in that sweet honey voice. He would listen to his father talk about the office, his mother talk about her book club, and then he would talk about school. Blaine would say that it was fine, he had friends, and he would hope that they could hear his voice tremble, see the minute shake in his hands.

  


They never did.

  


During the summer, he would split his time between going to his father’s office parties, sitting in on his mother’s book club, and wasting away the days in his room, strumming his guitar until his fingers went numb and red. On days where there were no office parties, no book clubs, and his hands were too sore, Blaine went to the park to watch the sky. He would look up at the clouds, thinking up what they looked like and dreaming of a time where he could be happy, where he could be free.

  


He decided to come out his sophmore year. Before classes, he told his teachers, asking for them to use his name and pronouns; none of them did and every use of  _that_  name was like a punch to the chest. Blaine’s throat tightened, his vision blurred, but he said  _here_  and cried in the bathroom instead of in the middle of class. He didn’t try to push his identity again after that, his humiliation enough to discourage him.

  


It wasn’t until later, when classes had switched and Sadie Hawkins was coming up, that he thought about coming out again. The bitter pill of rejection had been swallowed, leaving a bad taste and resentment, but not much else. Because it was girl’s pick—and how Blaine _hated_  that—, he had no trouble finding a date; a tall, lanky sophmore that apparently hadn’t heard the rumours about him.

  


His parents were proud, all smiles when he told them. His mother gushed about it being his first dance and how she couldn’t wait to take pictures. His father talked about how relieved he was that Blaine had finally shown an interest in men and about how this Trevor boy seemed like a nice young man. Blaine’s chest tightened at that, an offhand reminder of what he wasn’t, and he excused himself to the bathroom. He sat on the toilet and buried his head in his hands, crying softly until his mother knocked on the door, asking him if he was alright. 

  


The days before the dance passed slowly and were suffocating for him. His mother took him dress shopping, insisting on him getting a cream monstrosity that fluffed around his hips and made them look larger. He nearly had a fit over that, trembling violently as he looked in the fitting room mirror and feeling as though he might just vomit all over the nice blue tile floor. 

  


The day of the dance, his mother invited her friends over to get him ready. Blaine’s curls were tamed into a respectable style, his face made up, and his nails painted. He was helped into his monster of a dress, his mother clasped a thin chain with a silver lily on it around his neck, and then he slipped on his heels. Everyone cooed and said he looked beautiful. They pointed him towards the mirror and Blaine felt the urge to vomit again. 

  


He excused himself, saying he forgot something in his room. They let him go and he wobbled up the stairs to his room. He looked around for a moment, at the posters and his guitar, before picking up the small bag he had stashed by his bed. Inside there was a nice pair of trousers, a button up, a pair of polished wingtips, a bottle of hair gel, and a chest binder. 

  


He carried the bag downstairs, heard his mother and her friends tittering on about him. He clomped into the sitting room and they went quiet when they saw him. His mother looked at the bag, made no comment, and in that moment he was grateful for her disinterest about matters that didn’t directly affect her.

  


An hour later, after chatter about the dance and tales about what it was like in their time, the doorbell chimed. He stood quickly, teetering on his heels, and hurried to the door. Trevor was leaning against the brick wall, handsome in a blue button down and gray slacks. He gave Blaine a once over and his lips tightened as if he was trying to hold in a laugh. Blaine smiled, waving a hand at his body and making some comment about how ridiculous he must have looked. 

  


He could hear the click of his mother’s heels on the wood floor and then felt her hand on his shoulder. Trevor straightened himself, standing taller with his chin tilted down to look at Blaine’s mother. He reached out a hand for her own, kissed the back of it, and introduced himself. She smiled and welcomed him inside to take pictures. 

  


Fifteen minutes later and they were rushed out of the door, Blaine carrying the small bag. Trevor’s father sat in his truck, window rolled down to flick the ashes from his cigarette out into the night. They climbed inside, Blaine wrestling with his dress, and then were on their way to the dance.

  


Not much was said on the ride. Trevor was fidgeting, hands moving restlessly, and his father was smoking, lighting cigarette after cigarette. They finally arrived at the school and climbed out. Blaine thanked Trevor’s father for the ride and he made a noise that might have meant _welcome_ , but Blaine wasn’t sure. 

  


Inside, the gym was dim with faery lights as the only source of light. Streamers hung from the ceiling and there were a few stars arranged around the room. The floor was a mess of people dancing, girls grinding on boys and boys grinding on girls. Blaine looked at Trevor and the boy looked back, face shadowed in the dull lighting. He made some crack about it being a zoo, but his voice trembled and neither one of them laughed. 

  


They sat at one of the few tables, grabbing punch on the way there. As they sat down and Blaine fiddled with his bag, Trevor asked what was in it, staring at him with wide, kind eyes. Blaine took a sip of the punch, throat suddenly dry, and told him. He expected him to make some rude remark, to get up and leave, to humilate him in front of everyone, but Trevor was silent. 

  


Then he asked if Blaine might like to change out of his dress and into something more comfortable, all while pointing at the bag. Blaine gave a startled laugh and said that he’d like that, yes. So they made their way out of the gym and to the only unisex bathroom in the school. It took nearly thirty minutes to change, wash his face, and fix his hair, but Blaine felt better when he walked out; he felt free.

  


When Trevor saw him, he smiled, wide and bright, and told him he looked quite handsome. They returned to the gym and their table after that, Blaine setting his bag and dress in an empty chair. A slow song played now, the melody a low sweet thrum. The couples on the floor were pressed tightly together, swaying instead of really dancing. Blaine watched them all for a moment and then looked away, his chest aching. 

  


He wanted this to be enough, to be out like this in a setting that mattered, but it wasn’t. He wanted to have someone hold him like that, tell him it would be okay, that he’d be alright. 

  


There was a sudden tapping on his arm and he glanced at Trevor. The boy held his hand out and Blaine felt faint with joy. He took Trevor’s hand and let him lead him to the floor. People were watching now, whispering amongst themselves, but neither of them cared. 

  


Trevor pulled him close, arms around his waist, and pressed his cheek against Blaine’s hair. He was warm and smelled faintly of smoke mixed with some light cologne. Blaine swallowed and closed his eyes, wishing that this boy would hold him forever. He could feel the familiar prickle behind his lids and willed the tears away.

  


They danced through that song and the next and the next until they were thirsty and their feet hurt. They grabbed some more punch and sat back down at their table. They talked and talked, finding they had many things in common. They told each other stupid jokes and made each other laugh. The time crept by and suddenly it was time to go.

  


Blaine grabbed his things, walking outside with Trevor and glowing with excitement. He had been afraid of what could go wrong ever since he’d asked him here, but there had only been some muttered insults and some whispering. They sat on one of the stone benches outside and Blaine listened as Trevor called his dad. He talked to him in hushed tones, smiling back at Blaine, and then hung up. 

  


Trevor started to say something, mouth opened and teeth glinting in the streetlight, when he was hauled off the bench by the back of his button up. Blaine jumped up and looked at the three boys that had snuck up while they were distracted. They were big, waists broad and shoulders broader. One of them, the tallest, still had Trevor by his shirt. He was giving Blaine a mean grin. 

  


There was some talk about how they were freaks, how they didn’t belong here, how they should die, and then they were both on the ground. Three against two was easy, especially when the two hadn’t been expecting it. It wasn’t quick and it wasn’t neat. Blaine tried to roll away from the kicks, tried to get to his feet, but he was pushed back down, head smacking face first into the sidewalk. There was blood and pain and he could hear Trevor mumbling, voice clotted and thick. There was the sound of something breaking, a wail, a mighty thud, and then silence. A hand fisted in his hair, pulled his face off the ground, and then he was turned around to see Trevor.

  


As soon as he saw him, Blaine knew something was wrong. His arm was lying awkwardly beside him, fingers crooked and swollen. He thought that Trevor might have passed out from the pain of that, but then Blaine saw the blood haloing his head, clotting in his hair, and he knew it was much, much worse. He tried to say something, but his mouth felt raw and he couldn’t speak over the lump in his throat. There was laughter as he made a sound of distress and then he was shoved down next to Trevor. The three said something about being taught a lesson and then spit on them as they left. 

  


Blaine shifted closer to the other boy, trying to breathe steady through his broken nose. He reached out a hand, pressed his fingers to Trevor’s wrist, and felt nothing. He felt the sting of tears and blinked to keep them away. Blaine called his name, shook him a little, and then went for his cellphone. 

  


He found the number for Trevor’s dad and hit call. Blaine struggled to tell him what happened, voice choked. The man was in a panic, talking like he hadn’t in the truck. He asked him if Trevor was okay, if he was okay, and Blaine said no. He asked him to stay on the line, told him he’d be there soon, but Blaine was already dropping the phone, tired and weak and hurt. He rested his cheek against the pavement and drifted out of consciousness. Sometime later he dreamt that he heard the screech of tires, frantic footsteps, and then the cry of a man who has lost something incredibly important. 

  


When he woke, his whole body ached and the room was white. Blaine thought for one desperate minute that he was dead, but then his mother was hovering over him, her face pale and lined. She was saying something, mouth moving fast. Blaine tried to reply, tried to tell her to sit down and give him some room, but his mouth felt like a desert and all that came out was a croak. A glass of water was held to his lips, his mother holding his head up, and he sipped down the cool liquid.

  


He tried again to speak, to ask what had happened to Trevor, ask what had happened to the guys who attacked them, but he was shushed and told to rest. He wanted to argue that he had had enough rest, that he just wanted to know what had happened and didn’t he have the right to know? Blaine laid back against the pillows, staring out the window, chest aching. 

  


The days in the hospital passed by slowly. Blaine was examined, re-examined, and asked questions. He told his mother, told the doctors, and told the police. His mother didn’t mention that he hadn’t been wearing his dress when he was rushed to the hospital and he didn’t have the heart to bring it up. All the while, they called him by a name that wasn’t his and he felt a constant ache in his chest, wishing to be small, be invisible, be safe. 

  


When Blaine was discharged, he was fussed over by his mother. She made him lay on the sitting room sofa, fluffed his pillows, brought him books, brought him his meals, and always asked if there was something else. He would train his eyes on the high ceiling and say there wasn’t. His father checked on him occasionally, talked about the office, the stocks, the weather; anything to keep from talking about the incident.

  


It all came to a head one late afternoon. Blaine sat upon the sofa, drowsy and listless. He had refused his breakfast, refused his mother’s offers to fluff his pillow, and refused his father’s talk about work. While he stared out the window, looking into the garden, there was the brief flurry of hushed voices in the dining room. They were angry, he knew, but he ignored them in favor of watching the way the rose bush swayed in the wind. There came the sudden clatter of a tea tray and still he didn’t turn.

  


A hand was on his shoulder, his mother’s voice telling him they were worried, and then his father’s voice rising, becoming louder and louder, as he talked. There were inquiries as to why he wasn’t wearing his dress, why he had changed, and then accusations; if he had just worn the dress, none of this would have happened and at that Blaine turned. His father fell silent and his mother held her hand to her mouth.

  


Blaine told them. He told them who he was, why he was, about school, about the things that happened there, about the teachers that refused to acknowledge his identity, about the students that pushed him against the lockers, and he told them about the mirror and what he saw. His mother started to cry, his father’s face began to turn red, and still he told them. 

  


When he finished, there was silence and then his father slammed out of the room. Blaine felt the tremble in his mouth, the way it turned down, and he tried to stop it, tried to stop the tears that prickled behind his lids, but they came and he put his face in his hands and he cried. There was the touch of a hand on his shoulder and then his mother’s arms were wrapped around him. She pet his curls, whispering that  _it was okay_  and  _it was going to be alright_ , and Blaine didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t okay and that it wasn’t going to be alright; that everything was different, he was different, and nothing was ever going to be okay or alright again. 

  


His father came home late that night, smelling of expensive liquor, and looked in on Blaine. He pretended to be asleep, shaking underneath his blankets, and then his father shuffled upstairs, into the bedroom. Blaine could hear the heavy whispers, his parents arguing, and then his father was stomping back down the steps and into the guest room. The door slammed shut and the night ticked on, Blaine awake until the clock chimed four and he drifted off. 

  


In the following weeks, Blaine was taken out of school, his father was silent, and his mother always stayed close to Blaine, smoothing his curls away from his forehead and giving him weary smiles. Her relationship with his father had become nothing more than a polite, business partner interaction and Blaine felt his stomach tighten with guilt every time they went to their separate bedrooms. 

  


He asked to see Trevor and his mother took him while his father was at work. The trip to the room was quiet and tense. Blaine felt like running the closer they got, but he went into the room in the end and then wished he hadn’t. Trevor lay in the bed, small and pale. His eyes were shut, his body was still, and machines hummed all around him. Blaine felt the sting of tears and swallowed them back. He went to the bed and took Trevor’s hand, stroking his thumb along the back of it. Then he whispered  _sorry_  and heard his mother make a sad noise behind him. She touched Blaine’s shoulder and told him she was going to get coffee. He listened to her heels click on the tile floor until there was nothing but the buzz of machines.

  


He started to talk. He told Trevor how sorry he was, how he never meant for this to happen, how he only wanted to be himself, and how he didn’t want anyone to get hurt for him. Blaine told him about coming out to his parents and how his mother was working through it, but his father wouldn’t even ask him to pass the salt at supper. He told Trevor about what the police had said, what the school had said, and how he had decided to switch schools because he needed to be himself and he needed to be safe when he was. He also told him about Dalton, about how he had found the brochure on the coffee table in the sitting room, and how his father had went red and yelled, but was convinced when he heard they had a no tolerance policy. In the end, he wanted Blaine safe, even if it meant he had to acknowledge that his little girl wasn’t a little girl. 

  


He ran out of things to talk about then and just stood there, stroking the back of Trevor’s hand and wishing everything was okay. Blaine heard the clatter of a cart behind him and looked back to see a nurse rolling in a trolley with bathing materials on it. She gave him a small smile, told him they needed to get Mr. Dane cleaned up and if he would just wait outside. Blaine nodded and walked out of the room. He saw his mother coming towards him, cups in her hands, and met her before she could get to where he was. He took his cup and began to walk back the way she had came, ignoring her questions and heading for the exit.

  


The paperwork for Dalton was finished that week and he moved into the dorms during the weekend. His mother cried, his father looked at him with hard eyes, and the ache in Blaine’s chest was as painful as it had ever been. His room felt too small and too empty with just him in it and he wished he had taken a roommate instead of explaining why he couldn’t to the headmaster. Blaine put away his things and slept.

  


In the morning, he dressed and looked at himself in the mirror. The blazer hid everything the binder didn’t and the slacks were loose enough that they disguised his hips. Blaine smiled, took a deep breath, and went to class.

  


The remaining months of his sophmore year were filled with studying, making friends, and joining the Warblers. Blaine auditioned for a place and ended up with a solo the next time they performed at an elderly home. He learned that the ache in his chest eased when he sang and that having people like him for who he was was one of the greatest things he had ever experienced. Each morning he felt more like himself and looking in the mirror stopped sending him into fits of trembling and nausea. 

  


When he went home for the summer, his mother had a multitude of clothes waiting for him. It seemed that she had bought a little bit of everything and, on top of it all, were brand new chest binders. Blaine cried at that, happy, and wouldn’t let go of her until she hit him with the wooden spoon she had been stirring the pasta sauce with. 

  


He wasted away his time with the friends he had made at Dalton, singing at Warbler get togethers, and sitting in the park, watching the sky and thinking up what shapes the clouds took on. He no longer dreamed about being free because he was living it now. Since the incident at his old school, Blaine had only heard a few insults, all of them aimed at his sexuality and none of them at his identity, but the no tolerance policy made it impossible for anyone to act out on their dislike and so Blaine was safe, like he had wanted. 

  


His father began to talk to him again, slowly opening up, and asked questions. He tried to make himself more knowledgeable, buying books, looking at pamphlets, and searching the internet. He drew the line at joining a group for parents of LGBT teens, but Blaine figured you couldn’t have it all and what he had was more than he had ever thought he would get. It wasn’t until his father started asking about girls that Blaine knew they were heading for more trouble.

  


He told his mother first and she smiled, telling him she just wanted him to be happy. Blaine then sat his father down, prepared for the worst, and got exactly that. It was too much and whatever progress they had made was torn apart with the words  _if you were going to date men, why not just be a woman_. Blaine walked out of the room and didn’t talk to his father until he apologized, but he knew by then that this was going to bring them problems in the future. 

  


The rest of the summer was a haze of heated arguments between his parents, longing to return to Dalton, and self discovery. He started to look at other boys, watch the way they moved or the way their muscles flexed. Looking too long brought a heat to his belly that sizzled there until he did something else to take his mind off it. Sometimes, if he wasn’t able to forget about it, the heat would grow and that place between his legs would become damp. Those were the times when the ache in his chest came back and he had to avoid looking for a few days for fear of it becoming too much again.

  


On one occasion, when his parents were out at an office party, Blaine stripped down to his binder and boxer briefs, looking in the mirror at himself. He ran his hands across the binder, the waistband of his underwear, and then underneath them, feeling the soft skin there. He touched lower, until his fingers encountered the beginning of curly pubic hair, and then even lower still. Blaine set his feet further apart, felt that slit part just a little, and pressed one finger against himself.

  


It was dry and warm; Blaine thought it might not be so bad, but then he remembered that this was the thing that made him not himself and jerked his hands out of his boxer briefs, the ache in his chest fierce enough to have him gasping for breath. He sat on his bed, avoiding looking into the mirror, and began to cry. 

  


He never tried that again, always ignoring that place in favor for the other one even though it didn’t bring him as much pleasure, and he never looked at his body like that in the mirror again. Blaine would try to forget about the things on his body that made it not his; he would try to imagine having a cock, but it was hard when he had nothing to imagine with. He thought about buying something to rectify it, but realized he’d probably have to explain to his parents and he didn’t want that conversation any time soon. So he made do and got on. 

  


Junior year started and Blaine felt different. He was on edge, worried, but he could only chalk it up to being one year closer to college. He took his required classes, signed up to play soccer in the hopes that it might bring him closer to his father, and joined the Warblers for their afternoon rehearsals. They were competing this year, facing off against a slew of other show choirs. Wes had somehow managed to get his hands on a gavel and now banged it every time he wanted order. New additions were made, people were cast out, solos were given out, and in the midst of it all, Blaine was named lead. 

  


Those first few weeks were hard. He tried to juggle his classwork with his extracurricular activities and took a soccer ball to the face on many different occasions. His fellow Warblers chastised him on being late and out of uniform quite often. Blaine worked harder; he studied more, played better, and stopped being late to rehearsal. He refused to go home on weekends, instead spending time in the commons, on the soccer field, and in the choir room. He nearly worked himself to a nub until Wes took him aside and told him they were worried about him. Blaine shrugged him off, said he was okay, and promised himself that he would sleep more, eat more, and be better at hiding his personal matters. 

  


And then, on his way to an improptu Warbler performance, Blaine was stopped on the stairs by a boy of his age. He was wearing a mock up of the Dalton uniform, but Blaine could tell he didn’t go there. He introduced himself and the boy said he was _Kurt_. Blaine smiled, telling the boy what was happening, and then taking his hand to lead him to the choir room. He took the hallway that he knew would be deserted, running with his hand tight in Kurt’s. 

  


They made it there just as the Warblers were getting ready and Blaine turned to Kurt, told him not to forget his jacket next time, and straightened the collar of his jacket. He turned, stepped to the front of the group, and began to sing. Blaine never took his eyes off Kurt, taking in the way his face went pink, his eyes went wide, and the way he seemed to stop breathing. 

  


Then Kurt smiled and Blaine felt his world go topsy-turvy. 

  


  


  



End file.
